Chocolate and Sex
by R2s Muse
Summary: The Inquisitor receives some unexpected insight about the most taciturn member of her new team. Set during DA: Inquisition, so it includes speculation and some minor spoilers. (OC is the Inquisitor, but that's not on the tag list yet!) Rated: T


**_Chocolate and Sex_**

_By R2sMuse_

Disclaimer: Dragon Age, Dragon Age Inquisition and its potential characters and setting belong to Bioware. Also, note the rating is T, not M.

**A/N: Happy Page 4000, Cullen thread! As always, special thanks to my beta, MeanieWeenie!**

* * *

Trev was slumped across the giant map of Orlais, which had brought her eye to eye with the tiny pewter owl perched on the ink-drawn circle labeled _Cumberland. _The owl's empty eyes seemed to see right through her, mocking her attempts to think strategically about the other troop markers arrayed behind it. Her one-sided staring contest was interrupted, however, by a singularly unexpected sound.

A man was laughing. No, more like chuckling. The type of inadvertent amusement one tried to keep to one's self, because it shared too much.

More than a startling reminder that she wasn't alone in the deserted War Room, the sound was unexpected in other ways. Warm and rich, the low rumble was almost sultry. Whatever had amused him, it was something private. And delightful. Possibly naughty. Like a reminiscence of some guilty pleasure. Like molten chocolate and sex. Trev almost blushed to hear it, as if she were eavesdropping, and perhaps she was, as she could not recall having ever heard the man laugh before.

She stole a curious glance over her shoulder.

Oblivious to her scrutiny, and in complete disregard for her order to take a break, Cullen sat at an adjacent table reading a report. After the hours her team had spent strategizing and squabbling over the Inquisition's next moves in the region, she'd finally told everyone to get some fresh air. Not that she'd followed her own orders. Nor, apparently, had Cullen.

The corner of his mouth was turned up in the barest trace of a smile and he gazed unseeing at the report in his hand. Trev couldn't help but stare at how the stern angles of his face had softened and his hard amber eyes warmed. Fascinated, she continued to watch him covertly, hoping he would laugh again so she could witness it first-hand.

She'd spent weeks trying to get such a human reaction out of the humorless former templar assigned to her service. For all that he did his job meticulously, attended every council, argued his positions with diplomacy, followed her every order, she couldn't find a way to connect with him as she had with the others on her team. No matter what she did, joke, carouse, flirt, over share, or how hard she tried, he would remain impassive and then excuse himself with a nod and a neutral, "Inquisitor." It was infuriating, so of course she couldn't stop.

It figured that her first glimpse of the man behind the armor came through no effort of her own.

As she watched, his lips twisted in a wry smile while his brow furrowed, like he was having an internal conversation with himself. She wondered what he'd be saying.

Probably more than just _Inquisitor_.

She sighed wistfully and in instant, amber eyes snapped toward her, the mysterious smile gone.

Caught staring, she straightened slowly and decided to brave it out. "Something funny?" she asked, trying to sound only casually interested.

"I beg your pardon?"

Her bravery trickled away before his puzzled frown. "Funny? You know, you were, um, laughing?" she replied in a small voice.

"Oh, was I?" he said, sounding surprised himself. He looked back down at the table with a rueful smile and then it happened again. That knowing chuckle, rolling from deep inside his chest, alluring and shivery. It said _I know something you don't know. And it's delicious_.

She waited, ears straining to hear more, while he stared at the table. Or was it at the report?

She inched closer, exploding with curiosity, but froze when he finally added, "I suppose it is a bit amusing."

"I didn't know field reports could be amusing."

"As a rule, no, they are required to be dull," he said drily. "It makes them seem more important." He looked at her steadily, no longer smiling, but for the first time she recognized a glimmer of personality behind the stoicism. He was laughing at her.

_How wonderful._

"What makes this report seem so _unimportant_ then?" she asked.

"Ah," he started and then paused with an embarrassed grimace. "There's a claim from a village in the Frostbacks that they've discovered a scion of Andraste."

Trev blinked and the little card house she'd built up about Cullen's wicked amusements collapsed. Was this the extent of templar humor? Talking about the founder of his religion? "Funny lady, that Andraste," she said, letting her puzzlement show instead of her disappointment.

"Well, that's not precisely what I meant." He laughed again, and his stubbled cheeks reddened slightly. Fascinated, she couldn't have looked away if a Fade rift had opened above their heads.

"I-It's an interesting theological discussion, you know," he continued, "A-Andraste's relationship with the Maker." His eyes roamed around the room, looking everywhere but at her. "Did she see Him in a corporeal form? Or was He more of an idea or a vision?"

Trev knew the story. Every Thedosian did, whether or not they followed the Chantry's teachings. Andraste the slave had sung to the gods for succor, and it was the Maker who answered and inspired her to lead the rebellion that felled an empire. The fact that Andraste's husband eventually betrayed her over his jealousy of the Maker added a certain romance to the story, but otherwise Trev had never given it much thought. Certainly not as much as he clearly had.

"I suppose I'd like to think that it really happened, and Andraste really saw Him," she said. That seemed safe.

"I do, too." He wet his lower lip and his eyes narrowed, darting to her mischievously. "Which raises certain questions. If Andraste truly has living descendants, well, how did that really work?"

Trev bit back a crude comment about Andraste getting descendants the "old-fashioned way" with her husband. Perhaps the others were right and Cullen's templar training really had precluded the birds and the bees.

Before she could find a suitable response, he added, "Andraste was the Maker's bride, after all . . ." He trailed off and glanced at her sidelong, watching for her reaction.

She gaped at him. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?" she gasped. She wasn't sure if she was more shocked at the suggestion that Blessed Andraste was sleeping with the Maker, or that Cullen was discussing such a suggestion with her.

He let out a bark of true laughter, no longer holding back, and it was a revelation. Like a light had rekindled inside him, his whole demeanor changed. His shoulders relaxed and his eyes brightened with mischief. It was like she was really seeing him at last, and he was suddenly, inexplicably, devilishly handsome.

_Oh my._

"My apologies. It was not my intention to scandalize you," he offered, his lips twisting wryly.

"Ah, you haven't," she quickly assured him.

_But I wish you would._

"It's . . . it's something we used to wonder about in the barracks when I was a recruit. That if the Chantry clergy are chaste because they're married to the Maker, as Andraste was, then was Andraste a virgin?" He chuckled fondly, shaking his head at the memory. "We were all so young, so gormless and hormonally challenged, as we prepared to take our vows."

"How old were you when you joined the Order?" she asked.

"About 15. But we don't take our vows for five to ten years more."

"So you spent your teen years in a templar barrack?"

"Is it that obvious?" he asked, giving her a lopsided smile.

"Oh, not at all," she said too quickly.

"You're too kind!" he dead panned. "In my defense, it was not the most worldly of upbringings."

She returned his smile. This was the most she'd ever heard about his private life. Without thinking, she asked, "Once you take your vows, are you also, um, married to the Maker?"

As quickly as it had come, his smile was gone, and his lips now pressed into a thin line. Her stomach sank.

"No," he said with a quaver in his voice. "Only holy initiates of the Chantry take a vow of chastity."

_He's laughing at me again, _she finally realized, relieved_._

But then he caught and held her eye for a moment too long. Long enough for her to notice the chocolate-colored flecks in his golden eyes and to wonder how she'd ever thought them cold. Long enough that the blood started to pound loudly in her temples. Inappropriate thoughts of chocolate and sex rose up again, and her cheeks flushed with warmth. Suddenly there wasn't enough air in the room.

He finally looked away and her breathing returned to normal. "At any rate," he said absently, "Virgin Andraste, Bride of the Maker, having descendants is sure to upset the theologians. Whether or not it proves to be true."

"Oh, you know they're probably just Maferath's," she said, less than certain. "They were married after all."

He just grinned and chuckled again, his eyes dancing. "Perhaps."

"So the templar does have humor!" came a deep voice from behind them.

Trev turned at Varric's words and saw the dwarf sauntering toward them accompanied by a lithe blond elf. Varric nodded amiably at Cullen, whose face immediately closed off into its usual emotionless mask.

The elf snickered. "And, the templar seems to know about sex!" She gave Cullen an exaggerated leer. "The real question is if he actually knows how it works."

"Sera!" Trev exclaimed, rounding on her friend who just smiled innocently.

Trev turned to apologize to Cullen, but he was already striding away. The tense set of his shoulders signaled that their moment was over. One faint word floated back to her, clipped and impersonal.

"Inquisitor."

Her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Sera!" she repeated plaintively. The elf shrugged in response. "I was finally getting somewhere," Trev hissed.

"No, you weren't."

"I was."

"You weren't."

"I was," Trev insisted, gritting her teeth stubbornly.

Sera sighed, her mobile features settling into a look of pity. "Agnes Trevelyan, when will you learn?" she said in a low voice.

"Don't call me that," Trev muttered, but without heat.

"He's not like other men," Sera continued. "Honey, you don't have chance with that one. Wake up now before you embarrass yourself."

"The man's got issues, Trev," Varric agreed. "There's a reason he's not on Thedas's most eligible bachelor list."

Trev crossed her arms and watched the retreating knight duck through the War Room door and disappear from view. "I was," she repeated to herself.

ooXXoo

Later that night, Trev was sprawled unceremoniously across the map again, chin pillowed on her hands. Unable to sleep, she'd decided to try to muddle through their troop movements again, hoping the late night quiet would have cleared her thinking. At this point, all she could really focus on was how the owl marker at Cumberland teetered so precariously to the side that it seemed ready to fall into the painted waves of the Waking Sea.

She was trying to straighten the damn owl's wings, when she heard that soft, suggestive laugh again.

"Should I leave you two alone?"

She immediately dropped the owl and spun around, struggling awkwardly to sit upright at the same time.

Cullen stood before her in a faded red tunic and black trousers, looking the least formal that she'd ever seen. Who knew there was an off-duty Cullen? It truly was a day of revelations.

"I didn't mean to startle you," he said.

"You haven't," she lied. She succeeded in scooting to the edge of the table, letting her legs dangle, and tried to find something nonchalant to do with her hands. She settled with balling them in her lap.

He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it, and for a moment gave her a look like he wasn't sure why he was there.

In an attempt to fill the silence, she offered, "I, um, wanted to apologize for Sera today. Her comment was uncalled for."

His face broke into a smile, a full, natural smile, and his eyes crinkled up a bit at the corners. "There's no need. She's hardly the first to tease a templar for his chaste tendencies."

"Still, it's no one's business but your own how chaste . . . or . . . or . . . um, well, not chaste, you might choose to be," she said, flushing and cursing her awkward tongue.

His lips curved into a small smile at this, but all he said was, "I actually came here to thank you."

"Thank me? Why?"

He looked off into the distance, his eyes unfocused again like earlier that afternoon. He ran another hand through his hair. "It's been a decade since I last was stationed at the Tower in Ferelden. Almost two since I began my training there. But, today was the first since I left there that I've been able to laugh about it. About the good times, anyway." He glanced at her briefly and then away again.

He wet his lower lip and took a deep breath before continuing. "All the bad things that happened, the fall of the Tower, the massacres, the torture, they have colored every recollection of my early days there. I hadn't realized that I couldn't even enjoy my good memories, until I finally could today."

He finally looked back at her. "So, thank you for helping me reclaim that part of my past," he finished.

She had to swallow around an odd lump in her throat. "My pleasure," she said when she could. "Although, I suppose you should really thank Andraste."

He cocked an eyebrow at her, so she added, "For apparently not being a virgin."

He gave her a slow smile and chuckled wickedly. The sound was less mysterious now, but no less beguiling. Still private and illicit, it now included her. Now it connected them. Which made it even more delicious.

He turned to go, but paused on the threshold. He slowly inclined his head toward her, his eyes alight again. "Trev," he drawled, before continuing out of the room.

**_Fin_**

* * *

**A/N2: So this little story was inspired by hearing Cullen's laugh from the unused DA:O sound files, which got me _thinking_. It also draws on what Cullen says in these sound files when "bored," namely, "So... do you think Andraste was a virgin? She was the Maker's bride... what do you think that means?" If you haven't heard them, check out the links in my profile. Anyhoo, just a bit of fun speculation. :) Thanks for reading!**


End file.
